After visiting Auschwitz, my next stop was Birkenau. As I walked though the Birkenau Extermination Camp at dusk, it hit me like a freight train once again how depraved the human race is.
Birkenau Extermination Camp, A Photo Essay
The scary thing is how efficient the operation was, like a well-oiled Mercedes Benz. As you cross under the iconic arch and into the camp, you realize that the railroad tracks you are standing on were specifically laid to transport men, women, and children directly to slaughter. Most were gassed. Many were worked to death first. Some became medical experiments. Others were brutally tortured…for sport.
Why? Even before the Jews and other persecuted minorities were killed, Nazi Germany cultivated a concept called Lebensunwertes Leben (“life unworthy of life”). This program included eugenics, forced sterilization, and eventually a euthanasia program personally ordered by Adolf Hitler meant to rid the German race of so-called impurity. Like many things, it started on a small scale and grew to something far more destructive and pervasive.
This cavalier perspective on human life helps to explain why Birkenau came into being and how, after years of laying the groundwork, so many could be so complicit in murdering human beings. Deep down they knew it was wrong, but had been programmed to believe it was life unworthy of life or that the rights of others were more paramount. Men do a wonderful job at suppressing their conscience and disregarding the universal value that human life is sacred.
Birkenau, also known as Auschwitz II and part of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, is not within walking distance of Auschtiwz. Instead, the two are 3.5 kilometers apart, a drive which took about seven minutes.
Give yourself several hours here to walk around. We entered around dusk and were not chased out, but could have used a lot more time. Walking through the quiet barracks and ruins of gas chambers under the shadow of a full moon, however, was a poignant reminder that even in the stillness of the night there is a deep sense of unease while standing in a place that was a hub of great evil.
The remains of a gas chamber and crematorium:
Thank you for doing these stories. It’s a historical event and locations that never can be forgotten once those who lived it are gone from this Earth. At times I fear it is being slowly happening intentionally or unintentionally.
Sobering indeed. Thank you Matthew
Well done Matthew.
I visited Birkenau on a warm and sunny day one May and I’ve never felt as cold as I did there. I found it worse than the Auschwitz main camp and far more disturbing. People passed through the railway arch, got off trains and walked towards the trees at the far end where the gas chambers were. You could have believed it was a pleasant walk after being stuck on a train for days, you might have had hope that things were to get better and instead people were dead within the hour.
Never tolerate racism because this is where it ends.
I’m going to be an optimist. You describe the human race as depraved, but I think the fact that we find events like this to be rare and abhorrent means that we are in fact, not depraved, and the few who are make up the worst amongst us.
Read up the experiment by the Stanford professor about the fake prison run by students. It’s a fascinating study. Google will find it easily.
Humans want to be depraved. They are always looking for an excuse. Maybe that’s why religion is both essential and dangerous at the same time.
There is good and bad in all of us. Never forget that the land which gave us Bach, Beethoven, Einstein, Daimler and Diesel also gave us Auschwitz, Sobibor and Treblinka.
There’s nothing unique to Germany about that range of diversity, it could happen anywhere.
“Like a well oiled Mercedes Benz……..”
Poor choice of words……..very unprofessional:
I can’t imagine Mercedes Benz being happy at their fine vehicles being linked to the depraved terror suffered by so many……
Shame on you.
And I’m quite sure my reference was very deliberate.
https://group.mercedes-benz.com/company/tradition/company-history/1933-1945.html
That’s what I thought. Well done.
May I add this:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2663635/Revealed-How-Nazis-helped-German-companies-Bosch-Mercedes-Deutsche-Bank-VW-VERY-rich-using-slave-labor.html
Mark, you wanted to make a point, to shame Matthew, without doing the homework. He showed you the error of your harsh words, that he professionally did his homework regarding the automobile manufacturer. It’s hard to go back and make it right but I think you owe Matthew an apology.
Sad but true, human society will always have Wars. WWII, Vietnam, Iraq, etc. We will never learn.
Any thoughts on which camp to visit first or is it pretty much irrelevant?
It depends on how gruesome you want the experience to be!
When I saw The Killing Fields in Cambodia, I saw the infamous Tuol Sleng prison where many of the murdered were tortured as well. The thing is, it would have made a lot more sense to do this chronologically with the prison first and the Killing Fields after but our guide did this (IMO) backwards. That made the whole narrative a little less effective and striking. Hence my question to Matthew.
If you want to begin at the beginning, Dachau was the first camp followed by Buchenwald and Sachenhausen, all in Germany.
The villa on the lakeside at Wansee where the conference was held that determined the ‘final solution’ and on the way back from there stop at platform 17 at Grunewald where Berlin deportations happened.
The operation Reinhard camps came first, Treblinka, Sobibor and Majdanek, only the last one has much left, it’s near Lublin. They were in full swing as the focus of Auschwitz moved towards mass killing. More is known about Auschwitz because it was bigger and had work camps, the others really were just killing machines and there are fewer accounts because almost no one survived.
For Auschwitz itself, I agree with Matthew, Auschwitz first and Birkenau afterwards. No amount of preparation will prepare you for what you will see.
I liked the order in which I went. I don’t think it matters, but the exhibits in Auschwitz prepared me for Birkenau.
You can indeed walk between the two camps and it’s highly recommended to do so. Tens of thousands of people do it on Holocaust Remembrance Day as part of the March of the Living. In fact, on the way, there are preserved railway sidings where the trains would stop and SS officers would make selections of prisoners. Incredibly recommended vs. driving.
This is very helpful and I was not aware. Thanks for your comment.
I thank you for sharing your photos. I Appreciate your effort and would like to visit there myself one day. Found this on an app I use for news. How do I read more about your travels?
Hello Cindy, you can subscribe to my daily email digest by using the pop-up that should come up on the screen when you scroll down a blog story.
Matthew,
I visited Dachau back in 1984, and I can still recall the eerie and sad feeling that I felt. I can’t help but bring myself to tears when I think about all the suffering the Jewish people endured and suffered as a result of their race and religion. I read a lot of WWII Europe books; some are nonfiction, and some are fiction based on truth. I have learned so much.
I lived in Germany for three years back in the early to mid sixties with my husband who was in the military; one of my children was born in Frankfurt. At that time, it was almost twenty years since the war ended in 1945. When I think back, I was still very young to understand or know the reality of what actually occurred. It was when I visited Dachau with my second husband and the reading I’ve done, that it really impacted me.
Thank you for visiting the various camps, and keep on writing.. So many Jewish people across the many countries in Europe have suffered at the result of that madman’s reign of terror.